summer reading

Vic kindly asked me to share a post on her blog, so I made a summer reading list. You can check it out here.

Alfred Eisenstaedt: Publicity man Russell Birdwell reading the Los Angeles Times on beach front between Malibu & Santa Monica, 1938. Found in the LIFE Archive.

Three photos of children painting at the Country Fair for Children held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1946.

All by Alfred Eisenstaedt for LIFE.

Alfred Eisenstaedt: Two teenagers sit againtst a wall sketching in the Toledo Museum of Art. Toledo, Ohio, 1939.

Found in the LIFE archive.

elaine

Elaine de Kooning:

1: Self portrait, 1946.
2: Willem de Kooning: Seated Nude (Portrait of Elaine). 1947-1949.
3: Self portrait, 1948-50.
4: East Hampton, Long Island, 1953. Photographer: Hans Namuth.
5: In the studio. 1964. Photographer: Alfred Eisenstaedt.
6: Self portrait, 1974.

keeping our heads above water

If my life means anything, it is that I am always forgetting just what it is that I want. How’s that for meaning? I have found a way to be unsatisfied by everything and always somewhat pleasantly excited . . . I want to know who has ever found anything as wonderful as being a strain . . . held tight between two eternities . . . you would think I wanted to die, if you didn’t know me better, it is more that in truth I would like to vanish . . . You always think I am kidding. I am trying to define happiness by what I have actually got and go on from there.

Kenneth Koch. From 'Reflections on Morroco,' published in The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951 (1979).

Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt (via).